As far as I know Russ has made mention of this in the past...how else would I think that?

I am reading a book about a certain Air Force Colonel - John Boyd - and wondered whether Russ had heard of him (same era, I guess)...an interesting man, Google him. (That's where the "you may learn something" comment came from.)

Hi William. I was an Air Force officer during Korea and Vietnam both. I flew F-84's out of Taegu at the end of the Korean war. In 1965 I was commander of a radar site in the Vietnam delta and then eight years later I was commander of the group that owned all the remaining radar sites in Southeast Asia. I spent 26 years in the USAF. I didn't know Boyd, but I'd heard of him.

Yeah, you probably should have PM'd me, but I laid all this out a long time ago on here, so it probably doesn't matter.

I thought is might be interesting if you had something to add to this story. A truly amazing character! ( I read somewhere that every American should read this book - someone to be really proud of!)

The reason I did not PM you was was because I thought this story would be of interest to a lot of people here, especially because it seems that he is not as well-known as he should be...(I thought the Coffee Corner was the ideal place to share it, particularly if you had some personal knowledge to share....)

"This video contains content from Smithsonian Networks, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Sorry about that."

The "sorry about that" is priceless. It's a phrase right out of the Vietnam experience, always used sarcastically. Made me want to pick up my M-16 and blow away the monitor.

Ah! It's a docu. about a couple of helicopter heroes and medics who flew five repeat trips into bamboo jungle, using the fan to chop down the reeds so they could land and rescue ambushed GIs and some officers. You have to salute some of these guys. Maybe being in war gives added courage or perhaps it's simply the fact that you know it would be damned hard to live with yourself if lack of courage resulted in possibly avoidable deaths - even at the risk of your own.

Had an uncle who got the MC and was shot up crossing the Rhine; the only war stories anyone got from him concerned 'romantic' incidents along the way; never, ever, anything about the guns, guts and 'glory'.

Ah! It's a docu. about a couple of helicopter heroes and medics who flew five repeat trips into bamboo jungle, using the fan to chop down the reeds so they could land and rescue ambushed GIs and some officers. You have to salute some of these guys.

Right, Rob. The guys who flew dustoff were more worthy of salutes than anybody else I can think of in Southeast Asia. Probably the only others who put their lives on the line as often were the "civilian" Air America pilots. One of those guys was a good friend who'd retired and gone to work for Air America to earn enough money to buy an orange grove in Florida. Shortly after he'd made enough for his grove and was ready to hang it up he got himself killed in the right seat of a C-130 over Laos by what we used to call "the magic bb." Some guy on the ground with a rifle just got lucky. Then there were the "ravens," the "sheep-dipped" pilots who flew lightplanes as spotters for the Hmong in Laos. Check The Ravens: Pilots of the Secret War in Laos by Chris Robbins. I knew a couple of those guys too, people who'd been in pilot training with me. Their attrition rate was about 50%. It was a nasty but necessary war, stupidly conducted by our politicians.

The Boyd book is really not a "combat" book at all. He was the top instructor at the "Weapons School" at Nellis - the airforce version to "Top Gun". He then went on to much headier stuff in terms of air-combat tactics and fighter aircraft design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-Maneuverability_theory

To read of his "battles" in the Pentagon is mind-boggling, and in a way, perversely comforting for someone who lives in a country where greed, corruption and self-interest are rife. It seems to happen in the best of places!

Air forces around the world have borrowed from the work of this amazing and complex man. (At least someone learned something... ...even the Scottish Airforce?)